Cuomo threatens Senate coalition with extinction

Under pressure to deliver for progressives, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said if the state Senate failed to pass campaign finance reform, he would consider the Republican-Democratic governing coalition "a failure."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo drew a line in the sand for the state Senate Thursday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's alliance with the coalition of Republicans and independent Democrats that control the state Senate is on the brink of collapse.

Mr. Cuomo drew a line in the sand Thursday, declaring that if the Senate fails to pass campaign finance reform before the end of session in June, he would consider the governing coalition "a failure" and would work actively to dissolve it.

"I said clearly that if public finance is not passed by the end of the session I would consider the coalition a failure," Mr. Cuomo said at a Superstorm Sandy-related press conference in Staten Island Thursday. "And then we'd enter a period of time, political season, where everyone makes their case to the people, and I intend to go to the people and tell them what I thought, which was the coalition failed to deliver important progressive items."

Asked if he would campaign against Senate Republicans, Mr. Cuomo said, "Maybe. Mmmmaybe."

The governor said negotiations over a campaign system in which small donations would be matched by taxpayer dollars broke down recently after the state's Conservative Party warned Republican senators to oppose the plan or risk the third party's crucial endorsement.

"I think that has chastened the state Senate and the Republicans in the Senate," he said.

Mr. Cuomo now says he is "pessimistic today that public finance will pass" before the end of session at the end of June.

The governor also said he found it "highly ironic" that the state Republican Party "overwhelmingly supports" comptroller candidate Robert Antonacci, who has agreed to participate in a public finance pilot program to fund his campaign. (Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has opted out, despite supporting the concept of public finance.)

For the last two years, Mr. Cuomo has worked collaboratively with the jointly controlled Senate coalition to pass bills that are aligned with his socially liberal and fiscally conservative agenda. Minimum wage increase, gun control and a property tax cap all were approved under the leadership of Sens. Jeff Klein, who runs the five-member Independent Democratic Conference, and Dean Skelos, a Republican from Nassau County.

But with Mr. Cuomo facing enormous pressure from his left flank, including the union-backed Working Families Party, which will decide this weekend whether to give the governor its ballot line or run someone against him, that marriage of convenience is poised to dissolve.

On Thursday, Mr. Cuomo didn't say whether he would work to reunify the Democrats by bringing Mr. Klein and his allies back into the fold of the regular conference, as the Daily News reported earlier this week. In a statement, Mr. Klein said he shared the governor's frustrations over public finance.

"In totality, the coalition has been successful in passing marriage equality, the toughest gun law in the nation, fully-funded, full day universal pre-k and increasing the minimum wage and I'm proud of this string of successes," Mr. Klein said. "I will continue to fight for the issue of public campaign finance reform, which is a critical piece of legislation, which must get done before the end of session."

A spokesman for Mr. Skelos did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier, in a meeting with the Crain's editorial board, Mr. Cuomo dismissed the notion that the Moreland Commission to investigate ethical lapses in the Legislature was intended to pressure lawmakers to approve a public finance system, calling such a move "extortive."